US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1973

On December 30 2019 22:23 Simberto wrote:
Both of those are problematic, though.

I honestly don't even know if Trump is more problematic. A system which habitually lets war criminals go free is at least as bad as president pressuring a system into letting war criminals go free.

Let’s consider some of Kissinger’s achievements during his tenure as Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy–maker. He (1) prolonged the Vietnam War for five pointless years; (2) illegally bombed Cambodia and Laos; (3) goaded Nixon to wiretap staffers and journalists; (4) bore responsibility for three genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; (5) urged Nixon to go after Daniel Ellsberg for having released the Pentagon Papers, which set off a chain of events that brought down the Nixon White House; (6) pumped up Pakistan’s ISI, and encouraged it to use political Islam to destabilize Afghanistan; (7) began the U.S.’s arms-for-petrodollars dependency with Saudi Arabia and pre-revolutionary Iran; (8) accelerated needless civil wars in southern Africa that, in the name of supporting white supremacy, left millions dead; (9) supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America; and (10) ingratiated himself with the first-generation neocons, such as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who would take American militarism to its next calamitous level.

A full tally hasn’t been done, but a back-of-the-envelope count would attribute 3, maybe 4 million deaths to Kissinger’s actions, but that number probably undercounts his victims in southern Africa...

On December 31 2019 05:24 semantics wrote:
Action taken is a direct reflection of the person taking said action. What others have done only matters when you dabble in moral relativism. Trump's pardon is his alone, at least any of the abrahamic religions would strongly disagree with moral relativism.

It doesn't matter if the same system was failing or doing a bad job under the former President.

On December 31 2019 09:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Jesus this thread is so repetitive. It's just GH saying the same thing over and over and over again on every subject and the same discussion arising every single time. I was reading from afar and waiting for the whataboutObama moment. Since we reached it, should we move on? This GHvstheworld bs is so dull.

Anyway.

Biden seems to be going further and further right. Seems that he thinks the election will happen with the independents and moderate republicans disillusioned with Trump. Not quite sure about that strategy.

Saying that he would run with a republican against Trump is probably just a way to appeal to a certain electorate, but I feel it will alienate him a ton if people.
Source

On December 31 2019 10:01 micronesia wrote:
I think the calculus in GH's mind is:

10% chance of getting what he wants times an outcome of +1 = 0.1.
90% chance of failing and ending up with Trump or Hillary anyone else bad times an outcome of -infinity = -infinity.

Therefore the best play is Hail Mary. It is Pascal's Wager.

On December 31 2019 10:06 micronesia wrote:
So, yes.

On December 31 2019 11:22 Velr wrote:
I never saw you ask me this.

I don't understand your question, my revolutianry prorgressive leftist frirend from switzerland.


I have no issue with progressive ideas, i have issues with destructive progressim of the sort that GH non stop propagates, he's a bad actor. All he does is hurt things. There is nothing good in his message, it's all doom and gloom. It's retarded and futile.

What i want? Realistic solutions. We are talking about an election in a country that just elected trump and some guys are propagating socialist fairytaleland. WAKE THE FUCK UP. Someone should shake you holier than thou superprogressives until you realise that at least 40% of a country are hardcore or rather conservative and all your doing is loosing them, while at the same time weirding out another 30% in the middle.

On December 31 2019 10:27 Nebuchad wrote:
One question that I never manage to have Biff or Velr answer is why they keep pretending that liberals are leftwing when they're from France/Norway and Switzerland. I've asked both of them several times but they always ignored it. Would be a non-repetitive topic to go into.

On December 31 2019 10:00 GreenHorizons wrote:


It's repetitive because you guys constantly do the "look at this thing Trump/Republicans did!? Aren't Republicans stupid/evil/hypocrites/etc..." Then several people chime in with their usual unfunny quips saying "yeah they are lol" and I eventually get bored of it and point out you guys are constantly distracted by Trump and the most absurd Republicans and incapable/unwilling to discuss the topics outside of partisan framing. The main reason being is it requires confronting contradictions that make them uncomfortable.

Like they support politicians that advocate for/praise and seek the endorsements of war criminals too.

As for Biden, like I said, he knows his policy only makes sense to advocate if it's a forced bargain with Republicans. If Republicans don't hold power/implode as a party, then he'd just have to advocate for the same bad policy without the excuse of having to appeal to Republicans.

To tie it to my previous point, neoliberals can't make sense of Obama and Clinton's praising of war criminals, and them still getting their support, without Republicans/Trump. Joe Biden understands that.

On December 31 2019 09:39 Biff The Understudy wrote:Biden seems to be going further and further right. Seems that he thinks the election will happen with the independents and moderate republicans disillusioned with Trump. Not quite sure about that strategy. Usually you want to build a base early in the campaign and go hunting for the centre later. Now he is kind of stuck doing both at the same time early.

Saying that he would run with a republican against Trump is probably just a way to appeal to a certain electorate, but I feel it will alienate him a ton of people.

Source

On December 31 2019 18:22 Biff The Understudy wrote:

I consider that left wing is what pushes a country to the left. Obama was left wing because his social programs, vision of society and reforms pushed America firmly to the left. And that's what I believe is needed.

Politics does not function in absolute terms imo. My ideal society is closer to the scandinavian model than anything in the democratic agenda, but I am a pragmatist and like to spend time on what is possible.

I'm also convinced that if you had given Obama complete free reigns to do absolutely what he wanted, you would have ended with a european style, social democratic country. But that was never remotely on the cards, and already, Obamacare or the financial reform were huge accomplishments in the right direction.


I just notice that every discussion is about you and you and you, and that it's boring. We got your point 4 years ago, we know word by word what you are gonna say "what Trump does doesn't matter, Hillary/Obama is evil too, only Bernie and the revolution can save us, the system is crooked anyway!!!", and no, you won't convince us that it's not an infantile, sterile line of reasoning that only exposes your immaturity.

This thread was nice once when it was not your playground for broken record style bickering. It's seriously unbearable.

"what Trump does doesn't matter, Hillary/Obama is evil too, only Bernie and the revolution can save us, the system is crooked anyway!!!"